The Durham Police Department will present its long-term master facility plan for endorsement by the Durham City Council at a work session today.
The plan, which is still in its preliminary phases, proposes moving DPD stations into new buildings and a restructuring of the department's field plan.
"This is very much a conceptual plan. All that we're asking from the City Council is to approve the concept of the plan," plan supervisor Lew Wardell said. "We're just trying to say its time to organize new facilities."
Wardell added that the current DPD headquarters on Chapel Hill Street will face increasing maintenance costs in the future. He said that a new building would help to alleviate the problems of the current facilities.
"This building is at the end of its useful life and is beyond what we are able to maintain," Wardell said. "We are looking for a headquarters building that provides us better features and enables us to operate efficiently."
According to the plan, which is available on the Durham city website, the building is beyond full capacity and unable to accommodate modern police operations. The plan also outlines the functional results of new facilities, such as improved beat integrity and a more efficient use of staff.
"This building was not designed to be a police station in the first place," Captain Lee Russ said. "We constantly have to adapt the building to fit our needs. And when you do that, some of the systems suffer.... This building has served its purpose."
With its current facilities under lease, the DPD hopes that the plan will allow it to build and own its own buildings instead of leasing them.
"We hope to get out of some long-term leases and we hope to build and own our own buildings," Deputy Chief Major Ron Hodge said. "We hope that the life of those buildings will result in some savings for the taxpayers."
The headquarters' relocation would also change the functional layout of policing operations.
With the new station, the DPD would move from a district configuration to a precinct one.
"The idea is to combine the resources that we have in those district stations under a precinct commander who will be able to use those resources a little bit more efficiently," Wardell said.
He added that the plan has already been approved by the five Partners Against Crime committees, which are district-based groups that act as liaisons between Durham neighborhoods and the police.
"We have really had to do very little revision of the plan at the draft stage," Wardell said. "Our plan will be good from the taxpayers' standpoint and it will be an efficient and good way to do business."
Both Wardell and Russ said that the restructuring of the DPD would not affect its relationship with the University. Wardell added that the relationship would "continue almost transparently."
Aaron Graves, associate vice president for campus safety and security, also said the change would not affect Duke.
"I do not see any impact as to where they are physically located within the city and the reduction of crime," he wrote in an e-mail.
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